The Human Condition
by The Fibonaccist
Summary: Tragedy begets progress, usually in roundabout ways. Songfic, Reno/Rude, mild slash.


_A/N: _A slightly different take on the universal doctrine of Reno and Rude. I've seen so many relationships like this- been stuck in a few, had the bad luck of causing a few until I knew better- and I realized that most of the people I've known in these relationships were almost exact molds of the basic personality foundations I see across the board for RxR, but I have never seen a fic or RP where the consequences of such personalities were met. I didn't want it to end with the hurting I've gone through and watched these people go through, though, so I borrowed from another popular trait I've seen among friends and in myself: sometimes you can't make significant progress in your life until you suffer a devastating setback.

Lyrics to "Call And Answer" by Barenaked Ladies. Reno, Rude, and other associated characters are © Squenix. Roo © me.

* * *

_We were running to catch up to the scout before he could get back to the hideout. My bomb was already ticking, so I had to run faster than Reno, but it never seemed to end up that way- fastest of the TURKs was ahead of me by a long shot, and he only slowed down enough to grab the bomb from me before forging ahead and bringing down the scout. We had to get the damned thing in before it went off. So many hallways- I knew I was glad we'd had the place cleared out. I could see the red mop bobbing ahead of me, and we set into the room to keep everyone there at gunpoint until we had twenty seconds left. We tore out of that room like motherfuckers, even when we heard the crash of glass in the room behind us that had nothing to do with a bomb. I heard the door smash open. I heard "RENO!" And when we both turned, we saw her bright green eyes, we saw her running toward us- and I had to slam him through a locked door to get us out of the backlash of the explosion before it was too late. In a contract like ours, your partner comes first, no matter who else is involved... even family. Especially family._

_We found out the next day that ShinRa had planned it that way. His sister's patrol unit was part of a resistance group as well, and they had been told by a planted spy that the terrorist meeting was an underground ShinRa meeting to smuggle children overseas for slave trade. They were told to storm the meeting place ten seconds before my bomb was supposed to go off. Wipe out a band of terrorists and a thorn in the company's side all in one boom. Efficiency was the way of ShinRa and the TURKs._

_The only thing protecting Reno and I from being tried as resistance members by association was the fact that we'd been picked up as vagrants, and therefore had no family histories on file._

**_I think it's getting to the point  
Where I can be myself again.  
I think it's getting to the point  
Where we have almost made amends.  
I think it's the getting to the point  
That is the hardest part._**

"I don't give a FUCK about your prayin', Rude! This ain't your bombin' masses!" Another duck, another hurled plate, another crash and tinkle, another dent in the wall. Rage and pain were etched into every blemish in the paint all over the room, despair in every domestic shrapnel, and I couldn't blame him for a single one. "This ain't NOTHIN' you fuckin' understand! You ain't never lost nothin' you can remember!" And even though it hurt to hear, I knew he was right. Any past I had to lose wasn't worth the effort of hurting for, not before these two came along. I only wished he would do things differently- that I'd rubbed off on him just one little way to help him get through it, but not Reno. In all the years we've known each other, Reno's dashed and darted his way through his ordeals and milestones with impressive independence and a nearly impossible sort of flair.

"Fuck you" were his last words to me, and "But" was the only one I could manage before he left me in the carnage he'd wreaked in our apartment. I've never been as good at words as Reno is. To his spark and life and passion, all I have is determination- and all I can do is understand. if I were in his shoes, I'd do this too- if I had any sort of color in my soul like he's got. I haven't seen him for almost a week now, after that night. It's all the same to the higher ups- he's been suspended for the outburst in the President's office after what happened. I don't even want to think about it, I'd rather lose myself in working, but Veld kicked me off the hook of training the new batch for 'vacation'- he only marked it as vacation to clear his motives with the President, but it was really bereavement leave. Veld knows I took this almost as hard as Reno did. Veld and Tseng were the only ones who knew exactly who was cashed in among the casualties.

The house smells like bourbon. The only intact bottle I could find was bourbon. Reno's favorite brand- the kind I pick up every paycheck for him. I've never really had a taste for bourbon. I'm more of a vodka man myself, but I haven't really felt like going to get a new supply of _anything_ all week. I've mostly been sitting on the couch- well, this side, now that Reno gutted most of the rest of it before he left- and staring at the mess of the mini bar he broke all over the floor, glass strewn from the kitchen to the front door and carpet soaked with alcohol. His temper didn't make it to either of our rooms or the bathroom, and he packed out his room anyway when he went, so I could sleep easily and go about my regular business if I wanted to... but I don't. All I can do is sit here and think. I'm tired of thinking, but in this situation, I've got nothing but time on my hands and nowhere else to search. I've looked everywhere I could think of to find him. I even took the risk of heading into the slums to see the folks, as incognito as I could be- only to be told he stopped by to give them his latest paycheck before disappearing again without a word as to where he was headed. Ma said she doesn't blame us at all. And I know she wouldn't. She's not that type of person, and she knows where the blame should really lie. We all do- especially Reno.

I mean, we practically grew up together. Lack of proper schooling or organization in the slums makes the family sectors just as shabby as the orphanage and industrial sectors. It was his sister I met first. Roo, she called herself. She caught me running away from the orphanage when I was probably 11 or 12. I can't remember which. Packed a hell of a punch just like her kid brother. She was just as much a friend to me as Reno ended up being. Some would say a better one, if they knew who she was, but I know better than they do.

I thought I'd been adopted. I knew I'd been accepted, and formal adoption is only for the rich fucks up topside. It was pretty much the same thing. She used to joke that Reno and I were soul brothers. By the time we were old enough to crawl up to the plate and cause enough trouble for ShinRa to nab us a couple of years ago, she was making different kinds of jokes, but we didn't appreciate those. We pissed her off by getting picked up for TURK, when they wouldn't give her a second glance. I didn't know why until Reno told me while we were in training. That's neither here nor there. It didn't really change anything. She was still Roo to me, and when I told him that, he was happy with me.

I've never cried in my life. Not even when they told us we'd never see our family again. Reno was pretty pissed off about that one, but it was easy to reason with him after his temper died down. It was easy enough to adapt to the fact that from then on, Reno was all I had, and vice versa. That little fuck hits pretty hard when he's mad, even if he is a runt. Elena thinks it's terrible how hard he punches me when we're supposed to be best friends. She doesn't understand. it's why I don't talk to her. I don't talk to anyone, really, but him- not unless I'm reporting to Veld or the President. I can almost smile, a bitter smile nobody likes to see from anyone, when I remember Veld's offer to open a search unit for him. Veld doesn't understand either, come to think of it.

**_You think I only think about you  
When we're both in the same room.  
You think I'm only here to witness  
The remains of love exhumed.  
You think we're here to play a game  
Of who loves more than whom._**

He won't be stupid enough to hurt himself, to try to kill himself. Reno's got so much more than that and he knows it. He knows he has a lot to live for, and he knows he wants to live for it no matter what gets taken away- he's always taken things like loss as a challenge rather than a defeat. It aches, though, to think about the fact that he'll never come back. I can't understand this with him, he said. I'm too much like her, he said. It was okay, he said, when he had us both, because back then it was funny- back then things were good, even if I was all he had around to cheer him up sometimes, and I made up for it by reminding him of her. It always hurts when he says things like that. I know he doesn't mean them to hurt. It's hard to realize the gravity of telling someone they're a last resort when you spend your life surrounded by people who would fall all over themselves to give you everything you want because you're the only resort _they_ want. Reno's good at getting that out of people. And I could never really blame him for preferring that kind of groveling over quiet company like mine- what am I anyway, but a meat shield? I've never had anything to give him that he couldn't get from someone else- someone richer, better, prettier- except my protection. Loyal minions are a dime a dozen for someone like him, but he could never find a friend who grew up quite as big as I did to watch his scrawny sweet-talking back.

He meant well. He appreciated me, in his own way. We knew since we joined TURK and got stuck in two different dorms for training that as soon as we made it to the real deal, we were gonna live together. That's what best friends do. And once we got that far, it worked out pretty well, I thought. He sent me off with bar and hotel money when he brought girls home, or sent a girl with a full bottle of something good my way when he decided not to come home at all. Paid the rent when he had the cash, made up for it in favors when he found himself with too much fun and not enough paycheck for the rent. It's never been a problem. Even in the past year or so when it feels, in retrospect, like almost every other thing we did together off the clock was argue and brawl. After we wound down from the fights, he said I'm his best friend; every time we got too tired to throw any more punches, he said I knew how to deal with him, that he was grateful for that. We usually fell asleep together on the couch, reminiscing and drinking, but he was always gone by morning, heading to work early to make up for slacked paperwork or going to hang out with another, more interesting friend. I could handle it. Because I was his best friend. The way he always said it made me feel like I was the only one who could ever understand him. It made me feel like I was worth something to him, something special, and it gave me faith in the fact that as bad as it looked to anyone on the outside, we knew how it really worked, and we'd always be here for each other, even when things got bad. So I always prayed for him before I went to bed. I still do, and I always will. Even though he's gone now.

I was stupid to think something this drastic wouldn't shatter the friendship we had. I was stupid to think a lot of things, I realize, and as soon as I admit this to myself, it feels like a piece of my soul is crumbling away. But I'll still pray. The one thing I was born knowing how to do besides fight, the only thing I know I do for him that nobody else in his throng would do. Even in his whole great big family, as loving and accepting and understanding as they've been over the years, I can safely say only one other person ever prayed for him. But now it's my job.

I jump, nearly fall off the couch, when my phone rings. It's not the professional ring. It's his. I'm still stupid, my conscience tells me as I scramble through the wreckage of the living room left in the wake of his temper. I only cuss when a piece of glass gashes the bottom of my foot open. I've been hurt worse; I'm a TURK. We can handle pain to extremes that make civilians queasy just to think about. I nearly fumble and drop the phone as I flip it to answer it. I want to berate him, yell at him, tell him what an ass he is for leaving me with such a mess, with all this hurting and garbage and broken glass. I really want to.

"Reno! Are you okay?"

"M'alive... Rude... m'back onna continent now, but I ain't got no car... can y'pick me up in Junon?" The exhaustion, physical and emotional, seeps through his voice as if his vocal cords were nothing but an old thin rag. It breaks my heart to hear it.

"Soon as I can. I-" and he hangs up with a grunt.

I want to tell him off so badly, the same way I've wanted to so many times in the last year. My revelation of a few minutes ago hangs heavy over my head, but eventually sloughs itself away in chunks with the wind whipping through the window as I speed down the highway. I'm just as stupid as I've always been... and I always will be. I'm just as bad as the rest of his throng- but at least I've got size on my side. I just hope he never meets someone my size for the rest of our lives, or I'll be in deep shit.

**_You think it's only fair to do  
What's best for you and you alone.  
You think it's only fair to do the same to me  
When you're not home.  
I think it's time to make this  
Something that is more than only fair._**

It's only a four-hour drive to Junon, if you know the right roads going off the highway. He doesn't answer when I try his phone, so I have to ask from the port to the bars to find him. He's not in a bar. He's on the shore past the little village under the city, sitting on a rock off the beach and letting his feet hang into the water. He doesn't look at me when I wade in and sit next to him. This isn't a time for words. I pride myself in knowing little things like that... I doubt anyone else he spends time with even gets a chance to be there when he wants things quiet. I can't see much of his face. I can see a little blood, a little bruising, and it's all I can do not to crack my knuckles and turn back to raze every fucker with bloodied knuckles I can find on the harbor.

It's almost a half hour before he speaks. "M'sorry." His voice is as ragged and haggard as his face, sounding even more decrepit than it did on the phone.

"...s'okay."

"S'not. I went an' got mugged while I was talkin'a you. Took my wallet an' phone, I was gonna buy us a drink up at the Oasis."

"Reno, you don't have-"

"Ain't what I'm sorry for, though." I don't reply this time, knowing if I do, he'll cut me off again. He waits a few moments and lets his head hang at an angle, looking almost like his neck is broken. "What we talked on Tuesday? That ain't right. What I said weren't right. I didn't... I wasn't mad 'cause y'don't un'nerstand. Gods know you was the only person hurtin' juss' as bad as I was, you was the only one who _did_. I was... I mean I was..." It's the first time I've ever heard that strangled kind of sound since he broke his leg in the junkyard when he was 12. His shoulders shudder and the bit of one eye I can see is shimmering like the sea over our feet. The tired hitch in his sobs tell me this isn't the first time he's done this today.

"Reno..." I have no idea what to say, what to do. He hasn't cried in years, and every time he's gotten himself hurt since the last time he did cry, he's shooed me away, forced himself back to his feet, dusted himself off and kept going. It's just what Reno does. There's no way to describe my level of bemusement. He slumps forward, head hanging lower than his shoulders, and I can see a long bruise beginning to bloom purple across the back of his neck, just under the wild mop of hair he never bothers to trim or style. I wonder how out of it he was. Reno doesn't let himself get mugged. He doesn't let himself get injured enough to bruise unless he's got a scar-inducing gash to go with it, but the way the bruise lays on him, the only ways he could have gotten it were if he were lying face-down somewhere and something was dropped on him, or... someone hit him across the neck before he noticed them. He finally expels a deep sigh and rocks a little to lean against me, still slumped. I give him a tentative arm over the shoulders, and the quiet crying starts anew. He turns and clings to my shirt, the one I haven't changed for a week, but neither of us care about that.

"She always useta tell me after you was asleep an' I snuck down home to see'er, Bren," he chokes into my side, and I twitch, startled. He hasn't called me by the name the orphanage gave me since before we were snatched up by ShinRa. But he won't let me ask him why, or what the hell he thought he was doing laying a trail to his family for ShinRa or our enemies to sniff out. "She useta say I... I didn't deserve friends like you the way I was behavin', the way I was growin' myself up. She said you was too good t'know how wrong I was doin' by ya. Said I- I didn't know what was good for me, that she oughtta slap my head on straight an' not lemme go home no more 'cause I'd get'em all killed. I ain't never wan'ned to get'em killed, Bren, I never thought it was true, I didn't think ol' man ShinRa would do somethin' like that. I... I... she tol' me so much. An' I never wan'ned to believe her neither, 'cause I didn't wanna think I was hurtin' ya none. I didn't..."

I already don't remember why I was aching so badly on my way here, why I was so angry when he called. Reno's words always seem to do better than potions or materia for patching me up. Nobody understands that. The jaded part of me I'm ignoring still tries to struggle and speak- at first I assume it wants to warn me, but it only says that for once, this is different- there's something different in his words, there's something trying to heal him too. "Reno... I'm not- I mean I don't..." but I don't know how to phrase anything for the confused clamor now, or the way he clings to me like he used to cling to his sister when he had nightmares. The way he used to cling to me after nightmares, when we slept on the couch, but now he's awake and he isn't screaming or fighting or trying to defend himself. He burrows arms under my arms and huffs into my chest, and my shirt is getting wet from his tears.

"M'sorry, Rude, I'm so sorry," he finally whispers. "I didn't go 'cause you didn't un'nerstand. I hadda go 'cause I knew y'did. I couldn't face ya, not after all that. I couldn't... I didn't wanna watch ya stand there an' take it no more. I know y'got a stronger backbone than that, I seen ya use it. I didn't wanna know I was the only one hurtin' you all this time, on top o'you already hurtin' for the bomb." He stops for a moment, sucking in breath as if his throat were full of cotton, but shoves me with his own weight and continues before I can open my mouth to speak. "Don' tell me you was fine, Rude, I know... I know how yer face looks when y'get upset an' I saw it every time I came home with a lay, an' I saw it every time we was fightin' an'... an' I hadda go after you was asleep when we was sleepin' inna livin' room 'cause I was afraid if I stuck around, I'd... I wouldn't letcha go an' you'd wake up an' freak out or.. or wake up an' think I was playin' ya like a lay."

"I wouldn't have," I manage to cram into the small chink in his stream of words. Whatever he says next ends in a choke, and his arms do the best they can to crush what they can reach of me. He's a strong little fucker, contrary to what most people think. He hits damn hard when he's mad. But everyone is right when they think I'm stronger. It means I can take it. That I can take anything. Nobody understood that... not even Reno, at least not until now.

"Rude..." he ventures, in little more than a whisper.

"Mm?"

"Can I... c'n I come back? Can I still live there?"

**_But I'm warning you- don't ever do  
Those crazy, messed up things that you do.  
If you ever do, I promise you,  
I'll be the first to crucify you.  
Now it's time to prove  
That you've come back here to rebuild._**

I'm malleable. I'm not stupid, not anymore. It takes a long time to think over that. If this could end up the same way it's always been... I could take him back there. I can let him dick around to his heart's content, forget to pay the rent half the time, go out to party and let me worry in the dark until he comes home to send me out for the night or sends me a 'care package' to let me know he's alive. I can take his temper, I can roll with his punches and let us turn them into fights so we can wind down and apologize, fall asleep, and I can wake up alone and colder than I am when I go to sleep alone. I can spend the rest of my life watching him take out pieces of my resolve, my backbone, my soul, and keep rebuilding them from the rest of me and my faith in the fact that nobody understands. I can pretend it doesn't hurt for the rest of my life, when he looks at me and I know he'll get angry because he sees Roo behind my eyes. Because we were the only ones who ever prayed for him, and if it weren't for him pushing me away as much as he did when we were younger, Roo never would have taken me under her wing and taught me everything she knew about how to take care of him. He'll get angry because she taught me how to love him the way nobody he uses would know how. And we can fight about that too, and he can get angry and leave every time it gets to be too much for him to handle. I can take all that and more. I've been doing it for years.

No, I can't. My stomach twists and my chest aches when I realize that I can't do that anymore, not the way I used to. When I look at him, a little more of me crumbles away. Staring at me with eyes still wet, waiting confidently- even after he just poured out his heart- for me to give up and say yes. "I..." I start, trying to push my voice past the lump in my throat. "Reno... it's... it's not that simple."

His face falls, and his shoulders slump, and he leans against me again. It's the first time I've ever heard him sound defeated, and it doesn't sound right at all. Not from Reno. "Gotcha. M'sorry... I knowed I shoulda 'spected you to take it again, not after what I done. I c'n find a place, find a job, s'not that hard. I juss'... can I get a ride back to Midgar, least? I'll pay ya back for totin' me there, soon as I start gettin' paid again. ShinRa fired me, din'he? Right?" He pushes away, the way he always does when he gets hurt, and any second he's going to stand up, shake the water out of his shoes, dust himself off and keep going. Reno never stays down. He's got too much to live for to let himself get dragged down into failure and hurt.

I can't let him walk away. "You're not fired," I correct quietly, trying to look for reasons to get up and do the same, or... or... I grab his arm even as he leans forward to stand up. He tugs his arm and stares, his brow furrowed, but I can't let go. I can't live the way I've been living until now, but I can't let go. "Veld just suspended you. And... and I meant... I didn't say no. There just need to be changes."

"Changes?" he repeats uncertainly, and I feel guilty for bringing up the idea because he sounds like a trapped animal when he says it that way. But he said... he said I have a backbone. If I show I can defend myself as well as him, maybe we've got a chance.

"You need to have the rent ready from now on. Every time." A look of relief washes over his face and he relaxes again, nodding. "And stop bringing girls home. I don't care if you go out... just call me to tell me you're okay instead of what you always do. I... I don't like them. I always tell them to just go home." I pause for a moment, the uncertainty shifting over to me as Reno's face becomes unreadable.

"Anythin' else?"

It's hard to pull the courage to give words to my last request. I have to swallow back the lump again and stare at the water so I don't have to meet his eyes. "Just... if we sleep in the living room, don't... don't leave. I miss you in the morning... and I hardly get to see you unless we're working. Just give me that, and you can stay."

"...Rude..." And there are the weathered hands, nimble and deft when I see them work their magic during our missions. They pull my head up by the chin and cheek, much in the same way Roo used to do when we were young and sulking. This time, though, there's no snub nose and freckles and womanly laugh. There's only the eyes I've been staring at since I first got to see them so long ago, the thin bounce-back smile gone lopsided from the scar on the inside of his lip. Tear tracks run down his face, and I didn't realize how dirty he was until now- he must have been rolling in mud or something wherever he's been for the past week. But it doesn't matter, because I haven't changed my clothes, and neither of us care.

I don't know how it happened, but we're kissing, and his arms are tight enough around my neck to pop it, and I can't let go of his waist. The only thing keeping us from tipping over into the water is the stance of my boots against the rocks at the shallow bottom. He tastes like dust and sea salt and beer and blood. I wonder if that's supposed to taste good or romantic, and I don't care. He only lets up on me when he's on my lap and I'm holding his legs around me as if I were giving him a reverse piggyback ride. He pulls my shades away and kisses my eyelids when I squint, resting his forehead on mine to shield me a little from the sun. I've killed anyone else for touching my face... but I can take it from him. I trust him, with my life if nothing else. "I was thinkin' juss' maybe chuckin' the parties. I ain't never liked'em much inna first place," he mumbles against my cheek, and I know him well enough to hear what he really says. I can take that. I can take anything, as long as it's from Reno. He pulls back a little to search my eyes for a reaction and, for a split second, a sadness crosses his face that I can catch before it's gone.

"...You can call me Brendan again. If it'll help me not remind you of her." Rude little fucker, she used to call me because for the longest time, I wouldn't talk to her. And Rude stuck, even when I told Reno my name and he kept it secret for me. He smiles now, and it's not as sad as it was a minute ago.

"I will if I feel like it." And that's the way Reno's always been.

**_And if you call, I will answer.  
And if you fall, I'll pick you up.  
And if you court this disaster,  
I'll point you home._**


End file.
